


you take things so hard, and then you fall apart

by fracturedvaels



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Protective Hawke, Protective Sibling, Sibling Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-20
Updated: 2015-08-20
Packaged: 2018-04-15 15:54:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4612578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fracturedvaels/pseuds/fracturedvaels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Carver had gotten used to people picking on him since childhood. Even his own siblings did it - he couldn’t help it, but the barbs hurt; no one liked being called a baby at 13, no one liked being made fun of for still sleeping with a stuffed mabari, no one liked being mocked.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you take things so hard, and then you fall apart

**Author's Note:**

> borne of my carver headcanons: he's a hypersensitive sweetheart who hides behind anger and his fists mhm mhm i love it
> 
> unbeta'd pls let me know if you see errors

Carver had gotten used to people picking on him since childhood. Even his own siblings did it - he couldn’t help it, but the barbs hurt; no one liked being called a baby at 13, no one liked being made fun of for still sleeping with a stuffed mabari, no one liked being mocked. 

And it wasn’t gentle, playful banter or teasing; Carver still remembered feeling so awful for it that he buried the little toy in the backyard when no one was looking, fearful of being seen as weak or childish. “Weak” and “childish” were bad things.

(Bethany dug it back up. She knew. She always knew. When the toy appeared back on his bed that night, clean if a little frayed, she didn’t say anything. He never did something that bad again, but he never let Garrett know he still had the toy.)

But then time moved quickly after that. He became aggressive, “overcompensating”; the teasing didn’t stop, but people stopped looking at him as a little boy (well, with the exception of Mother). Carver left home and went off to war, and he came back…

…different.

Not better. Different. There was no time to notice these things, because he arrived ten minutes before the darkspawn did. And all of it burned - their beds, their clothes, his toy. All that was left was the family, the flesh and blood. And soon even some of that was taken. Carver remembered how Bethany went down, soft and squishy, not like the heavily armored soldiers he’d seen but like a dropped cake.

Maker, his stomach still churned at the memory.

And then there was Garrett. Garrett, who Carver knew was overattentive, who could pick the weaknesses in a rope up from twenty feet away. Garrett who was observant and wise. Mother didn’t notice how Carver flinched when she tried to smooth his hair down or how his hands folded in together over his stomach, like he was trying to protect something vital there or hide behind the span of pinky finger to thumb. Large, useless hands; what good was being a grown up if you couldn’t do grown up things, if people teased you and you couldn’t protect your sister?

Carver just wanted to forget. Go back. He’d take the teasing, if that meant he could pretend nothing bad happened. He tried to swallow the things and wouldn’t share the nightmares with Garrett and he knew that made him bitter, made him resentful; the lines under Brother’s eyes deepened with each day and Carver was torn between his guilt and self blame and his anger at losing her.

It wasn’t brother’s fault. Not really. But Carver wanted someone to blame. And his old resentment, the memories, the teasing because he wasn’t mature or brave or wise enough, all bubbled up. He could slam the lid down as tight as he wanted, but the pot was boiling over.

And he lashed out. He regretted it, but he did. Everything hurt. And there was too much empty space, like Garrett didn’t care, like Garrett didn’t feel her absence. He should mourn for her as much as Carver did, but Carver didn’t feel right mourning if Garrett wouldn’t mourn with him. He didn’t want to be alone like that again. He didn’t want to be the odd one out.

So it sat. And he stewed. And it got worse as time went on. He wanted to _be_  better and he wanted to _do_  better but it seemed even here in Kirkwall he had no friends, they were Garrett’s friends and Garrett’s friends did as they always would -they teased him. Taunted him. Mocked him. He tried to take it in stride and accept it as good-natured but it was too much, too much, too much.

And Garrett saw. Because of course he did. Because of course he would.

And there was the shift. Not sudden, like a carpet being yanked from underfoot. But he’d notice how Garrett’s hand hesitated, waiting out the flinch and the pull back; he noticed how Garrett’s hand sought his when he’d twist and mutter and whine into the night, wracked with grief and swallowed by flashbacks. He noticed the way people’s teasing pulled back, how Merrill looked at him with glassy eyes and how Varric sidestepped comments about overcompensating and not belonging and how they all eventually just… stopped. The barbs stopped hurting. The teasing was playful.

Carver wasn’t observant. What was the phrase? _If it was a snake, it’d have bit you twice._ He noticed these things because they were deliberate. Garrett planned them and plotted them.

But Carver was grateful, for the way his fists came up when someone mocked Carver. For the way his jaw clenched and he leaned forward when someone shat upon the Battle at Ostagar. For the way he sneered, impatient and unkind, at Anders when Anders talked about Bethany and _her magic_  as though she wasn’t a girl, just a concept, a flag he could carry into battle without her permission or the weight of her realities.

Carver noticed. And he reacted accordingly. Fighting harder, working harder, swallowing his anger and walking away when it got too much and he felt like sinking his teeth into the hand that fed him. He listened and accepted critique, and he pushed himself.

Carver noticed.

Garrett noticed him noticing.

For the first time in a year - for the first time in _many_  years - Carver felt like he wasn’t an outsider. Carver felt like he belonged.

Carver felt like a Hawke.

**Author's Note:**

> free goats at http://liviuserimond.tumblr.com/


End file.
